Masteries

Offense:
9

Defense:
0

Utility:
21

Introduction

Well, Vladimir got hit pretty bad: if many people haven't noticed, it's quite rare to see an exceptionally good Vladimir(Solo Queues). This guide is my way of playing Vladimir; just because he isn't 'OP' and Hextech is Unique doesn't mean he is no longer viable. The build (if you didn't notice) is going to get you 'farm-fed', not 'kills-fed': you can rake them in later.
Anybody with an ELO, this would probably be natural, this is just a way to dominate Solo Queue, and to effectively carry a team. I have been taking part in farming competitions with a friend: Mordekaiser, who is pretty good at farming; we've had four so far, and this build has won them all.

NOTE: Generally I am a terrible farmer with AP Carries and hate slow projectile speeds( Vladimir & Anivia) but I have been able to reach around 60-80 minion kills by 10 minutes, 120-160 by 20 minutes before going into the 200's by late game.

Here are some games that I have played using this build, (the 'Defeat' being the first time I tried it out):
25-35 minutes

25-35 minutes

25-35 minutes

20-30 minutes

Acronyms

AA - Auto-Attack
Armor - The resistance of physical damage
AP - Ability Power, key stat for casters
AoE - attack capable of damaging many enemies at the same time
AS (-AS) - The rate/frequency or duration between attacks
CC - Crowd Control
-> Stun - attack and leaves the target open for a short period of time.
-> Immobilizes/Snare - Immobilizes movement
-> Fear - (None) Unpredictable, Immobolizes control and and forces the champion to move in a random direction
-> Slow - Lowers movement, there are two types of slows; the Chill Slow and Tread Slow also to stack slow
DPS -
Physical -> Damage Per Second of a type of champion such as Master Yi and Xin Zhao
Magical -> Damage Per Second of a type of champion such as Annie and Ryze
CD - The duration before a spell can be used again
CDR - The reduction of the duration before a spell can be used again
ExP - An Experience Point
Kiting - The act of retreat however turning around occasionally to attack chasers
Juking - The act of tricking a person on the direction of movement
MS - Movement Speed the speed of which the champion travels
MR - Magic Resist The resistance of the magic damage
MP5 - Mana regen per second, high amounts are a necessity for early game or trigger-happy people
HP - Health Points the survivability without the resistances
MP - Mana Points
Pen -
Ar -> The reduction of armor to lessen the amount of damage reduced from physical attacks or even push armor to negative levels increasing the amount inflicted
Mr ->The reduction of magic resist to lessen the amount of damage reduced from magic attacks or even push magic resist to negative levels increasing the amount inflicted
Proc - Activate

Pros / Cons

Pros

Solid late game
High damage mid game
Impossible to taken out of the lane after level 9

Cons

Low HP for the majority of the laning phase
Low damage during early game
Susceptible to harassment early game

Masteries

The Ol' 9/0/21, classic for Casters, grabbing MR Penetration in offensive, going down the utility, focused on CDR. Questionable, going down the Utility tree because of the large number of masteries involving Mana, but going down the Defence tree will help Vladimir less, leave it to the tanks. Extra HP, Resistances, DMG Reduction, Minor AP? So What? Vladimir is a caster, not a tank: don't forget that; the HP is a side-effect of AP, not really survivability, Madreds Bloodrazors will shred you just as fast.

Items (AP or Spell Penetration)

(SKIP IF YOU DON'T LIKE NUMBERS)
Early game items revolve around Spell Penetration; forget AP for the time being. However, by level 9, assuming you have around 6000 gold, AP will become more effective than Spell Penetration.